Prior to the most important series of the season, the San Francisco Giants called Major League Baseball expressing, with questions and concerns, how the humidor baseballs at Coors Field were being used.

Following San Francisco general manager Brian Sabean’s discussion with MLB offical Joe Garagiola Jr., procedures have been changed on how the baseballs are removed from the humidor.

MLB will now change the way the Rockies get baseballs into games to ensure that the bag storing game balls is visible to umpires at all times. According to umpire crew chief John Hirschbeck, the change was ordered Friday by MLB umpire supervisor Mike Port.

The new procedures — which begin today and likely will remain in place through the remainder of the season — are as follows: An umpire will physically see the baseballs used for the game being taken from the humidor, and will also carry the balls out of the humidor. He will follow the balls down to where they are placed in the dugout in a ball bag, and the ballbag must remain in the umpire’s view during the game.

The fundamental change is seeing the baseballs removed from the humidor, which is located just down the hall from the Rockies’ clubhouse. Before there was no supervision.

“They will monitor from the humidor to where the ball bag is positioned,” Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney told The Denver Post.

Courtney said that the Giants called Friday, which resulted in the first procedural change involving the humidor since its advent in 2002. The timing, however, was interesting, coming in the heat of a playoff hunt.

The Giants admit they had a telephone conversation with Garagiola about the matter.

However, Hirschbeck also said today that he is confident that nothing suspicious is happening with the balls, telling reporters: “There is nothing going on, really.”

Giants’s pitcher Tim Lincecum was caught on video in the sixth inning Friday night saying “juiced ball” when thrown a ball from the umpire. That was followed by expletives and Lincecum threw the baseball back to the umpire.

“There’s speculation and I kind of verbalized it and that’s it,” said Lincecum today, admitting that the issue was in the back of his mind.

Asked if he can tell the difference between a regular baseball and a humidor ball, Lincecum said, “No, I don’t know. Sometimes I get a ball that feels a little softer than others. I don’t know if it’s been in the humidor or not.”

The Giants have alleged for the past two years, primarily through broadcaster Jon Miller, that the Rockies switch in non-humidor-stored baseballs to help them when they are on offense.

The Rockies denied Lincecum’s accusation.

Manager Jim Tracy said he had “more important things to worry about than a ball bag.”

Asked if it was a matter of the Giants practicing gamesmanship in the heat of a pennant race, “I’m not sure.”

Tracy added, “Here’s my take on it: I don’t know a damn thing about it. First of all, I can’t even tell you where the heck the humidor room is. That’s their job. But I guarantee you this: Since I was asked to manage this club, nobody has come in and asked me to approve any baseballs, nobody has asked me to rub any of them up, nobody has asked me, “Have these been in the humidor or haven’t they been in the humidor? It’s none of my business. It’s absolutely none of my business.”

Rockies’ spokesman Jay Alves issued a statement, reading, “As we have from the first day the humidor became a part of the ball storage process more than eight years ago here at Coors Field, we will continue to strictly follow any guidelines from the commissioner’s office.”

Troy joined The Denver Post in 2002 as the Rockies' beat writer and became a Broncos beat writer in 2014 before assuming the lead role before the 2015 season. He is a past president of the local chapter of Baseball Writers Association of America and has won more than 20 local and national writing awards since graduating from the University of Colorado journalism school with honors in 1993.

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